


FlannelCatBread

by der_tanzer



Series: Catbread [36]
Category: Riptide (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-04
Updated: 2014-09-04
Packaged: 2018-02-16 03:50:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2254800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/der_tanzer/pseuds/der_tanzer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's a special day for Murray and Ted. There are cats.</p>
            </blockquote>





	FlannelCatBread

**Author's Note:**

  * For [oddmonster](https://archiveofourown.org/users/oddmonster/gifts).



> For Oddmonster, who patiently guides me home.
> 
> Probably relies a bit too much on passing knowledge of Mervyn Peake's Gormanghast. So....sorry about that.

Murray let himself into the house, trying to keep the little shopping bag in his hand from rustling too much. He wanted to put it away and pretend he’d had it all along, that he hadn’t had to go out on the actual day of their celebration to pick up Ted’s gift. He was almost always the one prepared a month early while Ted scrambled to find a card the night before. If he got caught sneaking in with a shopping bag now—well, he’d never hear the end of it.

But don’t think it wasn’t Murray’s fault. He hadn’t gotten the idea until just six weeks ago, and then he’d had to have it made. So he didn’t feel guilty exactly, he just didn’t want to have to explain it and sound defensive. Ted adored him, he knew that the same way he knew the truth of gravity, evolution, and the everlasting popularity of Friends. But he also knew that Ted liked to tease and this would be good for years. Especially if the gift wasn’t as appropriate and wonderful as Murray hoped.

All these thoughts went through his mind in the few seconds it took him to open the front door and step inside. The bag rustled its betrayal from behind his long thigh and Ted, who was sitting in his favorite battered old recliner, looked up from his book with a grin.

“Hey, kid. Where you been?”

“Oh, um, just—out. I had a—an errand.”

“Huh. So, what’re you trying so hard to hide behind that skinny leg of yours?” Ted had a pretty good idea, not of the specifics, but of the nature of the purchase, and was right on time with the teasing.

“Oh, this? It’s, um, nothing. I mean it’s—I just—I had to—”

“You forgot our anniversary, didn’t you?” Ted grinned with the sheer joy of the habitual forgetter. 

“No,” Murray cried. Any accusation short of infidelity would sting less than his husband believing he’d forgotten this of all dates.

“Then where have you been?”

“I didn’t forget,” Murray said, almost frantic. He pushed the door closed and crossed the room in long, stork-like strides to kneel at Ted’s feet. 

Still grinning, Ted slipped a bookmark into his thick paperback copy of Gormenghast and laid it aside. Murray’s eyes followed it, because he wasn’t good at keeping secrets, and saw Ted’s expression shift from confident to curious. Murray had made him question his certainty and that leveled the field a bit.

“I had to have it made,” he said quietly, handing the paper bag up to his husband.

“Come on, kid. You know I don’t care about presents and stuff. I’m just giving you a hard time.”

“Don’t say you don’t care until you see it,” Murray said, smiling furtively.

Ted pushed his glasses up his nose in a gesture that proved beyond a doubt that couples grew to resemble each other over time and took the bag. It was stiff paper from a specialty shop that he’d never heard of and his brows knit together in puzzlement as he reached inside. His hand encountered a fluff of tissue paper wrapped around something hard and smooth, like porcelain or glass. His confident smile returned as he drew it out, looking at Murray rather than the object in his hand.

“Another cat? You’re so predictable.”

Murray’s lips quirked as if to say he wasn’t completely predictable even now and Ted’s smile froze as he unwrapped what was, indeed, a cat. It was glass, which was special enough, but what really set it apart was its little costume of black silk robe and mortarboard cap. The kitty was sitting up on its haunches, its forelegs crossed over its chest, clutching three tiny notebooks. Ted felt them lightly and was amazed to find that they were real, each plain white paper bound in brown leather.

“It’s—is it—Flannelcat?” he murmured, stroking the delicate tabby-striped head.

“Did you predict that, Lieutenant?” Murray asked smartly.

“I gotta say no. It’s beautiful, kid. How did you even—where did you—how’d you know?”

“That you’d like Flannelcat? Because he’s just like me, a silly professor who hardly ever gets invited to parties. Anyway, he’s my favorite professor, too.”

“Well, that’s just—thank you.” He pushed his glasses up unnecessarily and swiped a finger under his eye in the same gesture. Murray pretended not to see. “Let’s go put him away,” he said suddenly. “Help me up, kid.”

Murray unfolded his long legs, the popping of his knee joints signaling that he was well past fifty himself, and gave Ted a hand to pull himself out of the sunken recliner. Ted Quinlan was an undeniably old man, but he was still in remarkably good condition thanks to Murray’s nearly obsessive care. It was only his bad leg, injured in a war that ended nearly fifty years ago, that gave him pause when he tried to get out of his favorite chair.

“You could’ve done a Flay cat,” he teased, squeezing Murray’s hand. “All those long bones and cracking joints of yours. And you know you’d sleep outside my door if I asked.”

“If his name had been Flaycat,” Murray answered, “I would have. Even though I never want to sleep anywhere but by your side.”

They went into the bedroom together where all of the available wall space was taken up with custom shelving of cubbies and shadowboxes, and all of the spaces filled with cats. In a place of honor over the head of the bed was a pair of cats together, one a scientist in a white coat and taped glasses, the other an angry looking police cat with a badge on its chest and a tiny leather gun belt slung across its ceramic hips. Ted placed Flannelcat very carefully on the other side of the police cat so that it was hemmed in by the scientist and the professor, then repositioned the cop so it seemed to be scowling at both.

“Very nice,” Murray said softly. He wanted to say a lot more but suddenly he didn’t trust his voice. It was difficult sometimes just being in this room, surrounded by the cats that had become the symbol of their love.

“I guess I should give you something,” Ted said gruffly. “So you don’t get all hurt.”

“Ah, Lieutenant, your undying love and devotion are more than enough,” he said and laughed to hide the emotion that wanted to break through. Ted wouldn’t like it if he cried.

“Better be,” Ted muttered. “But here,” he went on, pulling a small box from his pocket and shoving it roughly into Murray’s hand. Murray opened the box and sat down abruptly on the bed as all the strength went out of his legs.

“Oh,” he whispered. “Oh, Ted.”

“Don’t you like it?” Flannelcat had thrown him for a few moments, but the former lieutenant was securely back on top now.

Murray lifted a heavy ring from the box and examined it carefully. The band was eighteen carat gold and the stone a square cut amethyst, their mutual favorite. The setting was engraved all around with a series of infinity symbols framing four dates, one on each side of the stone. Their birth dates ran along the sides, and across the top and bottom were today’s date and the date it commemorated, twenty years before. The date that started all of this, when Murray drove Ted home from the hospital, fed him sweet tea and dry toast, and made love to him in the tiny apartment full of cats where he had never been loved before. 

Murray slipped the ring onto the third finger of his right hand and reached for Ted, the box falling unnoticed to the floor. Their hands met and Murray pulled him down onto the bed, kissing him hard as they scrambled with each other’s clothes. 

But once they were naked the urgency vanished. Murray lay down beside him, kissing and stroking, his long fingers reacquainting themselves with the sturdy body that they had never for a moment forgotten. He reveled in Ted’s breathy moans, in the unexpected stiffening of flesh against his palm, in the solid reality of their love. Ted’s erection wasn’t necessary, Murray had long ago learned to love him just as effectively without, but it always made him feel extra special when it happened.

He sat up and slung one leg across Ted’s narrow hips. Straddling him lightly, looking down into his fine blue eyes through two pairs of glasses, Murray squeezed their cocks together in his fist and began to rock. Of all the things they’d done together, all the ways they had of being intimate, of experiencing every part of each other’s bodies, this was the one that Murray returned to most often. His eyes slid closed as he thrust, remembering the men they had been that first time—twenty years younger, friends and enemies and lovers all at once and for a long time after, until the day they were simply one.

“Look at me, kid,” Ted said firmly. “I want to see your eyes.”

A jolt ran up Murray’s spine and he obeyed automatically, as if he wasn’t the one on top. It didn’t matter; Ted would always be in charge. Murray bowed his head and came, skillfully massaging his husband to climax as he did. Through sheer heroic effort he managed to keep his eyes open throughout, to watch pleasure light up Ted’s face and bring bright youth to his features. Only after he’d seen the sun rise and set in Ted’s eyes did he allow himself to fall bonelessly to the bed and be held.

“So tell me, kid,” came a low, teasing voice from somewhere just above his head, rumbling at same time in the center of his chest, “who in the castle am I?”

“I’ve never been able to figure that out,” Murray sighed comfortably. “Ever since I first read the books in high school, I knew I was a Flannelcat with hopeless ambitions of aspiring to Flay. And I’ve always been your Flannelcat, of course. I knew that…” He trailed off with a sigh that clearly indicated there was no need of wasting energy with more words. “But when I read them over and over now, as I do, I look for you and I can’t find you there. I don’t think anyone as practical and straightforward as you could exist in Gormenghast. I guess,” he said, his own face lighting up with sudden revelation, “that makes you Titus.”

“Nah,” Ted said dismissively. He didn’t deserve such praise. “Titus knew Flannelcat. If he was me he wouldn’t have left.”


End file.
